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VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY — ._ 



LECTURE BY 




3547 JAN l: 

SWAMI ABHEDANANDA 




The Motherhood of God 



Tuxedo Hall, New York, November 12th, 1899 



Published by the Vedaxta Society 

NEW YORK 



PRICE, 10 CENTS 



54258 



A A 

Copyright, 1899, by SWAMI ABHEDANANDA, NEW YORK 






M I am the Father and Mother of the universe."— Bhagavad Gita, ix, 17. 

** Why does the God-lover find such pleasure in addressing the Deity 
as Mother ? Because the child is more free with its Mother, and conse- 
quently she is dearer to the child than any one else."— Life and Sayings 
of Ramakrishna, by F. Max Miiller,p. 118. 



THE flOTHERHOOD OF GOD.* 

The worship of God as the Mother of the universe, 
as our Divine Mother, is unknown to the people of the 
West.f Since the introduction of Christianity into 
Europe, the conception of God as the Creator and 
Father of the universe, has been preached by the 
theologians and priests of Christendom. Jesus, the 
founder of Christianity, worshipped God as His 
Father, and prayed to Him as the Father of the uni- 
verse; consequently, those who follow Jesus and His 
teachings worship God through this relation, estab- 
lished by their Master. The relation between father 
and son is much higher than that of the creator and 
his creatures, or the master and his servant. The 
more we advance in spirituality and the nearer we ap- 
proach God, the closer becomes our relation to Him. 
The worship of God is impossible without having 
some kind of relation between the worshipper and the 
object of worship. 

* Lecture delivered in Tuxedo Hall New York, November 12, 1899, 
under title of " God, our Eternal Mother." 

t In America Theodore Parker was the first who spoke of God as 
our Mother. 



2 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

In the Hebrew religion God (Jehovah) was con- 
ceived of as the creator, ruler and governor of the uni- 
verse. He was like a most powerful and despotic 
monarch. All creatures were related to Jehovah as 
subjects to their ruler. As a ruler punishes his dis- 
obedient subjects, so Jehovah punished those who dis- 
obeyed Him or His laws. The duty of a subject was 
almost the same as that of a slave to his master. As 
a slave serves his master through fear of punish- 
ment, so the Hebrews served Jehovah. The transi- 
tion from such a relation to that of father and son 
was indeed a great step. It was no longer an external 
relation to power and strength, but became a kind of 
kinship, of internal or blood relation, such as exists 
between an earthly father and his son. There is a tie 
of love which binds a son to his father, and such a 
tie brings the individual soul much nearer to the 
Creator of the universe. As the earthly father of an 
individual is ordinarily considered to be his creator, 
because of his begetting him and bringing him into 
existence out of nothing, so, when the undeveloped 
human mind began to think of the creation of the uni- 
verse, it imagined that the Creator was one who begot 
the universe and produced it out of nothing. Con- 
sequently the Creator became the Father of the uni- 
verse. 

All our conceptions of God begin with anthropo- 
morphism, that is, with giving God human attributes 
in a greatly magnified degree, and end in de-anthropo- 
morphism, that is, with making Him free from all hu- 
man attributes. At the first stage of our conception 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. 3 

of God He appears to us as an extra-cosmic Being, 
as the Creator of the universe, who is separate from 
the universe and dwells outside of it r just as a car- 
penter is separate from the chair or table which he 
makes, or as the father is separate from the son whom 
he creates. The Hebrew conception of Jehovah was 
purely anthropomorphic. He was an extra-cosmic 
Being. He dwelt in a heaven outside of the universe 
and possessed all human attributes. He created the 
universe out of nothing, fashioned it and became its 
ruler. The same Jehovah, when considered as the 
Father of the universe by Jesus and His followers, did 
not lose His extra-cosmic nature. Even to-day the 
majority of Christians do not go beyond this idea of 
an extra-cosmic God. They worship the same extra- 
cosmic Jehovah as the Creator of the universe, as their 
father. Jehovah is always masculine. He is never 
described as feminine. 

According to the Hebrews the masculine element 
of nature possessed all activity, strength and power; 
the male principle was recognized as the generator, 
and the female principle of nature was thought to be 
lower, insignificant, powerless and passive. The fe- 
male principle of nature was the producer and bearer 
of what the male principle created; consequently 
everything that represented the female principle 
was considered as unimportant. This explains why 
womanhood was estimated so low by the writers of 
the Old and New Testaments, especially by the 
great apostle to the Gentiles. Even the very appear- 
ance and existence of woman on earth depended upon 



4 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

a man's rib, according to Genesis. Although the 
Creator was represented by the Hebrews as masculine 
and all-powerful, when they explained the genesis of 
the world they could not deny the presence of the 
feminine element which helped the Creator in bring- 
ing life into existence. In the Mosaic account of 
Genesis we read "And the spirit cf God moved upon 
the face of the waters," (Gen. I. 2), which literally 
means that the Creator impregnated the waters or 
the female element of nature. And, as God, that is, 
the male element, was extra-cosmic, outside of nature, 
and possessed all activity and power, He became the 
object of worship; and the female element or nature 
was entirely ignored. Every Christian admits the ex- 
istence of nature, the female principle; but she has 
never been worshipped or adored. The idea of 
Father grew stronger and stronger and the mother 
nature was left aside as passive and powerless, and 
was ultimately ignored. As long as the conception 
of God remains as extra-cosmic, separate from nature, 
which is passive, so long will He appear as Father 
alone. The more we comprehend God as immanent 
and resident in nature, the more clearly we under- 
stand that God is our Mother as well as our Father. 
When we see that nature or the feminine principle is 
inseparable from the Being or the masculine element, 
when we realize that nature is not passive and power- 
less but the Divine Energy, then we understand that 
God is one stupendous Whole, in whom exist both 
the masculine and feminine principles. Then we no 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. 5 

longer separate nature from God, but we recognize 
nature as a part of the manifested Divine Energy. 

The tendency of modern science is towards this 
end. The doctrine of evolution, correlation of forces, 
persistence of energy, all these clearly prove that the 
phenomena of the whole universe and the various 
forces of the external and internal world are but the 
expressions of one eternal energy. The theory of 
evolution explains only the mode in which that 
eternal energy produces this phenomenal universe. 
Science has disproved the old theory of creation out 
of nothing through the fiat of an extra-cosmic God, 
and has shown that something can never come out of 
nothing. Science teaches that the universe existed in 
a potential state in that energy, and gradually through 
the process of evolution the whole potentiality has 
become kinetic or actual. That eternal energy is not 
an unintelligent energy, but is intelligent. Where- 
ever we cast our eyes either in the external or inter- 
nal world, we find the expression, not of a fortuitous 
or accidental combination of matter and mechanical 
forces, but of regular laws guided by definite pur- 
pose. This universe is not a chaos but a cosmos, one 
harmonious whole. It is not an aimless chain of 
changes which we call evolution, but there is an or- 
derly hidden purpose at every step of evolution. 
Therefore, that energy is intelligent. We may call 
this self-existing, intelligent, eternal cosmic energy 
the Mother of the universe. She is the source of in- 
finite forces and infinite phenomena. This eternal 



VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

energy is called in Sanskrit, Prakriti, Latin procrea- 
trix, the creative power of the universe. 

" Tvam para Prakritih sdkshdt Brahmanah 

paramdtmanah, 
Tvatto jdtamjagat sarvam tvam jag at janani Shive" 

"Thou art the Para Prakriti or the divine energy 
of the Supreme Being. Of Thee is born everything 
of the universe, therefore Thou art the Mother of the 
universe/' As all the forces of nature are but the 
manifestations of this Divine Energy, She is called all- 
powerful. Wherever there is the expression of any 
force or power in the universe, there is the manifesta- 
tion of the eternal Prakriti or the Divine Mother. It 
is more appropriate to call that Energy mother than 
father, because like a mother, that Energy holds with- 
in her the germ of the phenomenal universe before 
evolution, develops and sustains it, projects it on space 
and preserves it when it is born. She is the Mother 
of the Trinity, Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. She 
is the source of all activity. She is the Sakti, force in 
action. A creator, when deprived of his creative 
power, is no longer the creator. As the creative 
power is one of the expressions of that eternal 
Energy, so the Creator or Brahma is looked upon by 
the Hindus as the child of the universal Divine 
Mother; so, is the Preserver and the Destroyer. The 
Hindus have understood this Eternal Energy as the 
Mother of the universe and have worshipped Her from 
prehistoric times, the Vedic period. Here you must 
remember that this Divine Energy is not the same as 
the powerless and passive nature which was rejected 






THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. 7 

and ignored by the Hebrews and the Christians. You 
must not mistake this worship of the Divine Mother 
for Nature-worship. In the Rig Veda, the most 
ancient of the Hindu Scriptures, we read: "The 
Mother Divine says 'I am the Queen of the universe, 
the giver of all wealth and fruits of works. I am in- 
telligent and omniscient. Although I am one, by 
My powers I appear as manifold. I cause war for 
protecting men, I kill the enemy and bring peace on 
earth. I stretch out heaven and earth. I have pro- 
duced the Father. As the wind blows by itself, so I 
produce all phenomena by My own will. I am inde- 
pendent and responsible to none. I am beyond the 
sky, beyond this earth. My glory is the phenomenal 
universe; such am I by My power/ "* Thus the Di- 
vine Mother is described as all in all. We live and 
move and have our existence in that Divine Mother. 
Who can live for a moment if that Eternal Energy- 
ceases to manifest? All our mental and physical 
activity depends on Her. She is doing whatever She 
chooses to do. She is independent. She obeys 
none. She is the producer of every event that oc- 
curs in the universe. She makes one appear good, 
spiritual and divine, while it is She who makes an- 
other appear as wicked and sinful. It is through Her 
power we perform virtuous deeds or commit sinful 
acts. But She is beyond good and evil, beyond virtue 
and vice. Her forces are neither good nor evil, but 
they appear so to us when we look at them from dif- 

*Rig Veda, x, hymn, 125. 



8 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

ferent standpoints and compare them with one an- 
other. 

When that all-pervading Divine Energy manifests, 
it expresses itself in two sets of opposite forces. The 
one set has the tendency towards God and is called 
Vidya in Sanskrit. The other tends towards world- 
liness and is called Avidya. The one leads to freedom 
and happiness, and the other to bondage and suffer- 
ing. The one is knowledge, the other is ignorance. 
The one is light, the other is darkness. Each indi- 
vidual soul is the center where these opposite forces 
are constantly working and fighting with one another. 
When Vidya, or the powers which lead Godward, pre- 
dominate, we advance towards God and become re- 
ligious, spiritual and unselfish; but when its opposite, 
the Avidya power, prevails, we become worldly, 
selfish and wicked. When the former is predominant 
the latter is overcome, and vice versa. These powers 
exist in each individual, though they vary in the de- 
gree of their strength in each. The man or woman, 
in whom the former, that is, the Godward-leading- 
powers prevail, is called devotional, prayerful, right- 
eous, pure in heart, unselfish. These qualities are 
but expressions of Vidya powers within us. Such 
higher powers are latent in all, even in those who do 
not show such qualities. All persons can rouse those 
latent powers by practicing devotion, prayer, right- 
eousness, purity, unselfishness. The easiest way to 
attain these powers is by the worship of the Vidya 
Sakti, or that aspect of the Divine Mother or Divine 
Energy which represents all the powers that lead to 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. 9 

spiritual perfection. By worship or devotion we 
mean constant remembrance of that aspect. If we 
constantly think of the Source of all spirituality and 
of all the higher powers which make one spiritual, 
surely, those powers will be aroused in us, and we 
shall become spiritual, righteous and unselfish. 
Therefore the Hindus worship this Vidya Sakti. 
When they worship that aspect, they do not deny, or 
ignore the opposite aspect which leads to worldliness, 
but they make it subordinate to the higher Vidya as- 
pect. Sometimes they think of these opposite forces 
separately, personify them and make them the female 
attendants of the Divine Mother. The Divine 
Mother has many attendants. All the evil forces of 
nature are Her attendants. She stands in the center of 
the universe radiant in Her own glory, like the sun 
when surrounded on all sides by thick dark clouds. 

Wherever there is any expression of extraordinary 
righteousness and spirituality, there is special mani- 
festation of the Divine Mother. There is Her incar- 
nation. The Divine Mother incarnates sometimes 
in the form of a man, and sometimes in the form of a 
woman, to establish order and righteousness. All 
men and women are Her children. But there is 
something more in woman. As woman represents 
motherhood on earth, so all women, whether married 
or unmarried, are representatives of that Almighty 
Divine Mother of the universe. It is for this reason 
women are so highly revered and honored by the Hin- 
dus. There is no country in the world except India 
where God the Supreme Being is worshipped from 



IO VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

time immemorial as the Divine Mother of the uni- 
verse. India is the only country where the earthly 
mother is looked upon as the living Deity, and where 
a man learns in his childhood "One mother is greater 
than a thousand fathers." You have heard many 
stories regarding the condition of women in India. 
Most of these are grossly exaggerated, some are ut- 
terly false and some are partially true. The familiar 
American story of Hindu mothers throwing their 
babes into the Ganges to become food for crocodiles, 
is unknown among the Hindus. In the first place, 
crocodiles cannot live in a strong current like that of 
the Ganges. I have traveled the length of this 
mighty river from its mouth to its source, some fifteen 
hundred miles, but never saw any such acts. These 
statements were heard by me for the first time after 
coming to America, though tales and pictures to this 
effect have been quite common in this country in 
books for th.e young. There is not time to go into a 
discussion of those points to-day, but so far I can as- 
sure you, that you will not find any other country 
"Where every living mother" — as Sir Monier Monier 
Williams says — "is venerated as a kind of deity by her 
children, where every village or city has its special 
guardian mother, called (in Sanskrit) Mata."* It is ex- 
tremely difficult for a Western mind to grasp exactly 
what the Hindus mean when they say that every 
woman is a representative of the Divine Mother. A 
very simple illustration will give you an idea of the 
respect the Hindus have for women. In Sanskrit 

* " Hinduism and Brahmanism," p. 222. 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. II 

when two names are used together, the rule of 
grammar is that the more honorable should stand 
first. In Sanskrit we say women and men, not men 
and women; instead of father and mother, we say 
mother and father; instead of husband and wife, wife 
and husband, because a woman is always more honor- 
able than a man. In India wives do not adopt their hus- 
bands' names, they do not merge their individuality 
into that of their husbands as women do in the West, 
but they keep their own name separate. If a wife's 
name be Radha, and her husband's name be Krishna, 
and if we say them together, we would say Radha- 
Krishna and never Krishna-Radha. The wife's name 
must be said first. So we say Sita-Rama; Sita is the 
wife and Rama is the husband. Again, when God in- 
carnates in a man form, as in Krishna or Rama, the 
wife of such an incarnation will be worshipped as the 
incarnation of the Mother. The wife will be worshipped 
first and then the husband. A Western mind does 
not easily appreciate the wonderful reverence for 
womanhood which the Hindus have. 

The Divine Mother is the personal God, the same as 
Iswara in Sanskrit; and Brahman or the Absolute 
Substance or the Universal Spirit is the impersonal 
Being. Brahman is formless, nameless and without 
any attributes. It is the ocean of absolute intel- 
ligence, existence and bliss. It has no activity. It is 
the Godhead of Fichte, the Substantia of Spinoza. It 
transcends all phenomena. Before phenomenal 
manifestation Divine Energy rested on the bosom of 
that ocean of Absolute Being in a potential state. It is 



I 2 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

the dormant state of activity somewhat like our deep 
sleep state when all activity is latent. As in deep 
sleep all the mental and physical powers exist in us 
in an unmanifested condition and nothing is lost, so, 
before the beginning of the cosmic evolution all the 
phenomenal forces of the universe remained dormant 
in that Energy. There were no phenomena, no mani- 
festation of any powers whatever. Again, as in our 
waking state all the latent powers manifest and we are 
able to walk, move, talk and are tremendously active, 
so, when a portion of that Impersonal Being wakes up, 
as it were, and manifests the latent cosmic powers out 
of the sleeping Energy, the evolution of the cosmic 
Energy begins and the Impersonal Being appears as 
the Creator of the universe and its Preserver. 

Then the Impersonal Being is called personal, on 
account of that manifested energy. According to the 
Hindus that impersonal Brajhman is neithej masculine 
nor feminine. But the personal God is masculine and 
feminine both in one. Energy and Being are insep- 
arable in the personal God. As pure Being without 
energy cannot produce any phenomena and as Energy 
possesses all activity and is the mother of all forces 
and phenomena, the personal God is most appro- 
priately called the Mother of the universe. As fire 
and its burning power or heat are inseparable, so Be- 
ing and Energy are inseparable and one. Those who 
worship the masculine aspect of God, in reality wor- 
ship the male child born of that Divine Mother. Be- 
cause the activity, strength and power which make 
one masculine, owe their origin to that Divine En- 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. 1 3 

ergy. But those who worship the Divine Mother 
worship the Whole — all gods, all angels and all spir- 
its that exist in the universe. 

The wonderful effect of this conception of the 
Motherhood of God is to be found in the daily life of 
almost every Hindu woman as well as man. A Hindu 
woman thinks that she is a j)art of the Divine Mother, 
nay one with Her. She looks at all men and women 
of the world as her own children. She thinks herself 
as the blessed Mother of the world. How can such a 
woman be unkind to anybody? Her pure motherly 
love flows towards all men and women equally. 
There is no room for any impure thought or feeling 
or passion in such a heart. That perfect motherly 
feeling makes her ultimately live like the Divine 
Mother on earth. Her ideal God in human form is 
her own child. She worships the incarnation of God 
as her most beloved child. Just as Mary was the 
mother of Jesus, so the Hindu women in India often 
look upon themselves as the mother of Krishna, the 
Hindu Christ, or of Rama, another incarnation. 
Christian mothers, perhaps, will be able to appreciate 
this to a certain extent. If a Christian mother thinks 
that she is Christ's mother and loves Him as she loves 
her own child, the effect will be wonderful. She will 
then understand what Divine Motherhood is. The 
Hindus think this is the easiest way for women to at- 
tain to that love which makes one unselfish and di- 
vine. A mother can sacrifice everything for her 
child; she naturally loves the child without seeking 
any return, though there are mothers who do not 



14 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

possess pure, unselfish motherly love. A true mother, 
however, loves her child above everything. If such a 
child be an incarnation of God Himself, how easy it 
will be for the mother to attain to the highest goal of 
religion. I know a lady in India who became a widow 
when she was young. She did not marry again. She 
was not like the ordinary woman of the world who 
thinks that a husband is essential for her happi- 
ness and that marriage is the highest ideal of life. 
She lived the pure life of a nun and worshipped 
Krishna as her own child. She became so advanced 
in spirituality that now hundreds of educated men and 
women of high rank in Calcutta come to see her, to 
take spiritual instruction from her. They kiss the dust 
of her feet as devout Roman Catholics kiss the feet 
of the statue of Mary, revere her and call her the 
Mother of God, Mother of Krishna, the Shepherd. 
She is still living near Calcutta. She feels in herself 
the presence of the blessed Mother of the universe. 

Another wonderful result of this conception of God 
as the Mother of the universe, is that when a man 
worships God as his mother, he always thinks of him- 
self as a child in its Mother's arms. As a child does 
not fear anything when it is near its mother, so the 
worshipper of the Divine Mother is never afraid of 
anything. He sees the Blessed Mother everywhere. 
In every woman he sees the manifestation of his 
Eternal Mother. Consequently, every woman on 
earth is his mother. He conquers all lust and sense 
desires. He sees woman in a different light. He 
worships every woman mentally. I have seen a man 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. 1 5 

who lived on this earth like a living child of the Di- 
vine Mother, always protected and taken care of by 
Her. He worshipped God as the Mother of the uni- 
verse. Through that worship he became pure, right- 
eous and spiritual. He used to say "O, my Mother, 
Thou art all in all. Thou art my Guide, my Leader 
and Strength/' His Divine Mother showed him the 
true nature of man and woman. He bowed down 
before all women, young, mature and old, and said to 
them — "You are the living representatives of my Di- 
vine Mother on earth." How can a child have any 
other relation to one who is the same as its real 
mother? By this kind of devotion he conquered all 
lust and worldliness. His child-like, whole-souled 
and rapturous self-consecration to the Divine Mother 
is a landmark in the religious history of India, His 
whole life, which was the personification of purity, 
self-control, self-resignation and filial love to the Di- 
vine Mother, stands as a mighty testimony to the 
reality and effectiveness of the worship of God as the 
Mother of the universe. When he sang the praises 
of the Divine Mother, he gave life to every word he 
uttered, and no soul could hear him without being 
moved to tears by deep devotional feelings, without 
realizing that this wonderful child was in direct com- 
munion with his Divine Mother. His Divine Mother 
showed him that each woman w T as her incarnation, so 
he worshipped and honored all women as a son might 
worship his own mother. Some Western people may 
laugh at such reverence, but a Hindu is extremely 
proud of it. He knows how to honor a woman. 



1 6 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

Professor Max Miiller was much impressed with the 
wonderful life of this great sage, and recently pub- 
lished his life and sayings.* He was once asked : "It 
we are the children of your Divine Mother, why does 
She not take care of us? Why does She not come to 
us and take us up in Her arms?" The sage replied: 
"A mother has several children. To one she has given 
a doll, to another some candy, to the third a music 
box, according as each one likes. Thus when they 
begin to play and are absorbed they forget their 
mother; she in the meanwhile looks after her house- 
hold work. But the moment any one of them gets 
tired of the play, and, throwing aside the plaything, 
cries for the mother, 'Mamma, mamma dear!' she 
runs quick to him, takes him up in her arms, kisses 
him often and often and caresses him. So, oh man! 
being absorbed in your play with the playthings of 
the world you have forgotten your Divine Mother; 
when you get tired of your play, and, throwing aside 
the toys, you cry for Her sincerely and with the sim- 
plicity of a child, She will come at once and take you 
up in Her arms. Now you want to play and She has 
given you all that you need at present." 

Each one of us will see the Divine Mother sooner 
or later. The Mother is always taking care of us and 
protecting us whether we feel it or not, whether we 
realize it or not. "O, Mother Divine! Thou art the 
eternal Energy, the infinite source of the universe. 
Thy powers manifest in the infinite variety of names 

*See "Life and Sayings of Ramakrishna," by F. Max MuJler. Pub- 
lished by Charles Sciibner's Sons, New York. 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD. I 7 

and forms. Being deluded by the power of ignorance 
we forget Thee, and take pleasure in the playthings 
of the w T orld. But when we come to Thee, take Thy 
refuge and worship Thee, Thou makest us free from 
ignorance and worldliness, and givest eternal happi- 
ness by keeping us, Thine own children, on Thy 
bosom. " 



The lecture by the Swami Abhedananda on "The Mother- 
hood of God" is serious, logical, awakening, and one can 
hardly help feeling that only use and wont prevent us from 
recognizing that the phrase, "The Fatherhood of God," is 
really assailable. ***** Says Swami Abhedananda, 
"We live and move and have our existence in that Divine 
Mother." At present we are, as a rule, not much beyond 
the old Israelitish notion of Jehovah ; and here we find this 
enlightened Indian's teaching specially rational and whole- 
some. The Hebrew religion gave us the picture of a Jeho- 
vah, stern, arbitrary, and exacting as an Eastern autocrat. 
Says; the Swami, "The same Jehovah, when considered as the 
Father of the universe by Jesus and His followers, did not 
lose this extra-cosmic nature. Even to-day the majority of 
the Christians cannot go beyond this idea of an extra-cosmic 
God." And that is where we are to-day for the most part. 
What if the profound Eastern idea of the Motherhood of 
God, allied to our already fruitful idea of the immanent (in- 
stead of transcendent) God, should turn out to be the prac- 
tical emancipation of the Western mind, delivering it from 
the anthropomorphic images that cluster about this "extra- 
cosmic" God, and introducing it to a thought of God which 
will bring Him absolutely near ?***** We have 
long needed a little more of this "superstition" and senti- 
ment in "this happy English isle." Let us be hospitable to 
all who bring out from the treasury "things new and old," 
the "pearl of great price." Especially let us be hospitable 
to the interesting thinkers who increasingly remind us of 
the ancient proverb that wisdom comes from the East. — 
Extracts from the leading editorial of "Light" London, July 
8th, 1899. 



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